LONDON — Britain will have 13,500 troops on duty for the 2012 London Olympics and deploy two navy ships, warplanes and ground-to-air missiles to safeguard the Games, the defence minister announced Thursday.

Philip Hammond said the Olympics were a "once in a generation" event for the country and Britain wanted them to be secure for athletes coming from around the world.

The figure of 13,500 troops is significantly higher than the 7,000 that had been widely expected.

Last week, the government raised the Games' security budget from £282 million to £553 million ($856 million, 660 million euros).

Hammond said 5,000 military personnel would be deployed to support the police and civil authorities.

There will also be a 1,000-strong "unarmed contingency force for deployment in the event of an Olympics-related civil emergency."

A further 1,000 military personnel will provide logistics support with up to 7,500 providing security at venues, mainly at the Olympic park including the main stadium in Stratford, east London.

Helicopter carrier HMS Ocean -- the biggest warship in the Royal Navy, which served this year off the coast of Libya -- will be stationed in the River Thames at Greenwich, southeast London, Hammond said.

An amphibious assault ship, HMS Bulwark, will be stationed in Weymouth Bay off the southern English coast as a control ship. The Olympic sailing events are being held in Weymouth.

Typhoon jets, which were also used over Libya, will be temporarily stationed at a Royal Air Force base in west London while helicopters will operate from HMS Ocean.

'Hey guys, who needs to go into space when we can f*ck this planet just as well'

Hammond said there would be "appropriate ground-based air defence capabilities also to support the airspace security effort".

"Next year's Olympic and Paralympic Games are once-in-a-generation events for the UK," he said.

"We want them to be secure, so that all those competing and attending can enjoy the Games for the celebration of sporting achievement and cultural celebration that it is."

Hammond said the military personnel involved were "in addition to the ceremonial role which the armed forces will play during the Olympics, which will showcase our armed forces to the world.

"This defence contribution is on a similar scale to that deployed at other recent Olympic Games and will contribute to ensuring a safe, secure and enjoyable 2012 Olympics."

The minister stressed that British military operations in Afghanistan -- where Britain currently has around 9,500 troops fighting Taliban militants -- and elsewhere would be unaffected by the deployment.

"My priority will remain the troops we have deployed on operations, including in Afghanistan, before, during and after the Olympics."

It's just as I've always said or at least believed. These 'people' are like children in the Primary Play ground, playing War-Games, in efforts to put down those lines in the sand, for future reference ....Now, in days of old, like when I was 6 years-old, I would have suggested, 'Well, just boycott the damned games'. It's like a war, if no-one turns out on the day, the event will be a complete wash-out. Oh, but no! I have come to my senses and realized that what people will want more than ever to do, is prove that 13,500 troops on the streets of London means 'Peace & Security'. — Well folky folks, you get loads of that in internment camps too, just the kind these idiots will love to slowly and surrepticiously, beneath your ever so slightly dumbed-down senses, too, roll out and in barrel loads shortly thereafter, - every time the Empire needs a Money Bomb.

"You gotta love it", as someone from 'Taken', the Speilberg Cult TV-Series once said, shortly before being shot in the back by his co-conspirator, & lover, from behind the shower curtain.

Let's face it, I'll be one of those with a big smug glow on when this surrepticious and highly opportunist introduction to 'Murican Style Martial Law', goes ahead on the anticipated scale of 13.5K troops around London during the Olympic. And maybe Boris will give the go ahead for me feeling a whole lot safer 400 miles North of the Capital too?Not likely is it.

— State security, in history, has always been the last outpost of The Demagogue, and rarely deployed with the interests of freedom of speech in mind. — And Well, we all know what to think of the widely abused 'Freedom-of-Speech' concept ... don't they!!

'Congress is set to give the green light on funding for a massive expansion of TSA checkpoints, with the federal agency already responsible for over 9,000 such checkpoints in the last year amidst increased fears America is turning into a police state following the passage of the 'indefinite detention' bill.

The increase in funding has nothing to do with the TSA's role in airports - this is about creating 12 more VIPR teams to add the federal agency's 25 units that are already scattered across the country and responsible for manning checkpoints on highways, in bus and train terminals, at sports events and even high school prom nights.

"The TSA's 25 "viper" teams — for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response — have run more than 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year. Department of Homeland Security officials have asked Congress for funding to add 12 more teams next year," reports the L.A. Times. ...

Q: One of the comments I got on the blog I posted inviting readers to suggest questions was about strike action during the Olympics. [It was from Imageark.] Is that something you have talked about?

A: Absolutely, yes. The attacks that are being launched on public-sector workers at the moment are so deep and ideological that the idea the world should arrive in London and have these wonderful Olympic Games as though everything is nice and rosy in the garden is unthinkable. Our very way of life is being attacked. By then this crazy Health and Social Care Bill may have been passed. So we are looking at the privatisation of our National Health Service. I believe the unions, and the general community, have got every right to be out protesting. If the Olympics provide us with an opportunity, then that's exactly one that we should be looking at.

Q: Where could your members disrupt the Olympics? Have you got as far as thinking about that?

A: Not in the specifics, although, moving away from the public sector for a moment, our London bus members are desperately engaged in a battle to bring some stability into what is a crucial lifeline within this fantastic capital city of ours and they are not making progress – not being helped, of course, by the mayor, who seems oblivious to the wishes of ordinary working people. So they will be examining what leverage points we have, and the Olympics will clearly come into play.

Q: Where could your members disrupt the Olympics? Have you got as far as thinking about that?

A: Not in the specifics, although, moving away from the public sector for a moment, our London bus members are desperately engaged in a battle to bring some stability into what is a crucial lifeline within this fantastic capital city of ours and they are not making progress – not being helped, of course, by the mayor, who seems oblivious to the wishes of ordinary working people. So they will be examining what leverage points we have, and the Olympics will clearly come into play.

Now nobody has made any decisions yet and, of course, it would be nice if we were able not to disrupt such a prestigious event as the Olympics. But by the same token. people have to understand that we are fighting for our heritage here. Our parents and our grandparents, having defeated fascism in Europe, came back determined to build a land fit for heroes. They gave us the welfare state, the National Health Service, universal education. All of that is being attacked. I, for one, am not prepared to stand by and have my children or grandchildren say to me: "What did you do when this was being taken away from us?" When you say what can we do, and the likes of the Olympics, I'm calling upon the general public to engage in civil disobedience.